Matthew 25: 35 I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.​Can the United Nations’ World Social Justice Day February 20 open our heart to the world? While our northern neighbor found it in their hearts to resettle 200 percent of its share of Syrian refugees, we in the US have resettled less than 20 percent of our fair share. While our northern neighbors have found it in their hearts to build bridges, will we yet be the nation building walls? The America I know and love offers opportunity in a world where more than 60 million refugees and internally displaced people have had to flee their homes because of war, disaster and economic hardship. I urge Congress to stop sending weapons to countries where there is conflict and to stop presidential pandering to tyrannical leaders who only worsen the demand for sanctuary at our borders.Executive actions against immigrants are bad for free belief and bad for free enterprise. Our nation must keep its doors open to all people who are in need and those who face persecution ―not only because it is the moral and human thing to do ―but because doing so builds our current and future economic, social, and intellectual vibrancy. The America I love takes a strong role in the world as a force for good, and stands for human rights, human dignity, freedom of conscience ,and practical welcome of those driven from their homelands by poverty, war, or intolerance. Enforcement measures from recent executive action include for-profit detention facilities, the return of a controversial Secure Communities program and thousands more immigration enforcement officers, leading to workplace snafus, racial profiling, family separations and needless suffering. That is bad for belief, bad for business, and bad for benevolence.Organizations like Catholic Charities, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, the ACLU, and the Fairness Campaign, and Louisvillians Showing up for Racial Justice continue to provide much-needed immigration services but also bystander training, legal training, sanctuary work, support for families seeking asylum and “know-your-rights” education. We the people of good will and people of good faith demand immigration policy consistent with both our human and faith based values and with our common-sense American moral values. Numerous cities claim sanctuary policy or unofficial practice precisely because mixing local policing and immigrant enforcement makes communities less safe when immigrants fear reporting crimes, accidents, and health emergencies. Executive actions punishing so-called “sanctuary cities” won’t make our communities safer, but rather bolster our resolve to provide sanctuary.My name is Doug Lowry and I am a Baptist. My name is Doug Lowry and I am an American. Don’t ask me which I have more of a heart for because I have a heart for both. Baptists have long held that governments must protect the religious freedom of all people, not just Christians. Ideals of liberty of conscience and free exercise of religion both here and abroad have made America the beloved nation it is today. Our government’s actions against refugees ―restricting entry from particular countries― essentially freezes the federal refugee resettlement program ―and closes our hearts to the future.